Sunday 17 February 2008 19.06 EST
First published on Sunday 17 February 2008 19.06 EST

Henri Salvador, who has died aged 90, was one of the musicians who introduced rock'n'roll into France. This was just one aspect of his songwriting partnership with the poet, playwright and jazz trumpeter Boris Vian. In 1956, Vian returned from a US trip, declaring that there should be a French version of rock, without the "paralysing puritanism" found in America. On July 27 that year, Vian and Salvador (working under the pseudonym Henri Cording) cut four titles, Rock'n'roll Mops, Dis-Moi Que Tu M'aimes Rock, Rock Hoquet and Va T'Faire Cuir Un Oeuf, Man. The French chanson was never the same again.

Born in Cayenne in French Guiana, his parents, Gabriel Clovis Salvador, and Marie Denise Paterne, came from Guadeloupe. When Henri was 12, his parents moved to Paris, settling in a flat in the 5th arrondissement. Henri and his brother André attended school in rue Rollin, but it was at the Cirque Medrano, where they went to see the famous clown Rhum, that Henri found his first fascination with performance.

He quickly developed his own comic technique, and, aged 15, working in a street market, selling peanuts, he amused passers-by with his Maurice Chevalier imitations. When he was 16, a cousin from French Guiana came to stay, bringing with him discs of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. In his autobiography (Attention Ma Vie, 1994), Salvador wrote that "after a few bars, I was flabbergasted, knocked over, by the sound I was hearing. I had never imagined that such music could exist, and yet I felt that this was what I had always been waiting for ... I couldn't live without it."

Listening to these records, trying to analyse what the music's characteristics were, Salvador next heard a broadcast by Django Reinhardt, and it was this that made him take up the guitar. He and his brother persuaded their father to buy them instruments, and within a year they were playing guitar duets in local cafes. After one brief audition they were engaged for a summer season with an orchestra at Boulogne-sur-Mer. Back in Paris, they played at Jimmy's, a Montmartre nightclub, where Salvador first met American jazz musicians, and accompanied the violinist Eddie South.

In 1937, he was called up, briefly deserted, but at the outbreak of war, he was in the army. After the Nazi victory in June 1940, Salvador found his way to Nice, in Vichy (unoccupied) France, and was engaged by bandleader Ray Ventura to tour South America with his Collégiens. The band stayed there throughout the war, and Salvador began his recording career in Buenos Aires. With Ventura, he developed his talents as instrumentalist, singer and comedian. At the end of 1945, Salvador returned to France, and after a few orchestral engagements struck out on his own, making his solo debut in 1947 at Le Bobino music hall in Montparnasse. Record producer Jacques Canetti wrote: "He sang alone, accompanying himself on the guitar, moving with that stupendous virtuosity of his from humour to tenderness." Canetti engaged him for his first solo disc, Clopin Clopant, backed by one of the songs that became part of Salvador's repertoire Maladie d'Amour.

Before his South American trip, Salvador had married a Corsican, Lili Susini. The marriage was shortlived and in 1950, after three months of "chaste courtship", he married Jacqueline Garabédian and they remained together until her death in 1976. Jacqueline, an astute businesswoman, managed a lot of Salvador's career. He sang many numbers by other writers, notably Jack Dieval's and Vian's C'est Le Be-Bop and Léo Ferré's Saint-Germain-des-Prés, but Salvador's own songwriting career was taking off. A meeting with André Maurois led to him setting a verse that the famous novelist gave him, Les Oiseaux Et Les Rives. Maurois wrote that Salvador, "was adored by an immense public, and especially by the young. It was natural, his songs were sensitive and delicate. He sang them with a tender, caressing, melancholy voice - he expressed better than anyone the essence of that generation."

They had long been acquainted, but when Salvador and Vian decided to work together in 1956, the poet had a huge influence. "He only had to step into the house and look at me," recalled Salvador, "and I would start finding themes for new songs." Between then, and Vian's death in 1959, they produced scores of songs, including Je Peux Pas Travailler, Le Taxi, and J'ai Vingt Ans.

After Vian's death, Salvador took on a more mellow style. With the rise of a new generation, including Sacha Distel, Johnny Hallyday and Serge Gainsbourg, he returned to a more comic style, achieving an huge hit with Zorro Est Arrivé (1965). Salvador continued to perform until just over a year ago. One of his last albums was Revérence (2006), implying that it was time to bow out. President François Mitterrand made him a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and President Jacques Chirac made him Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite.